It is recognized tha commercially produced drive shafts, such as vehicle drive shafts are not uniformly cylindrical in cross section and are not absolutely straight throughout their length. In addition, the shaft may have irregularities in wall thickness. These irregularities in geometry and material result in incongruent mass and rotation centers, causing eccentric loading imbalance. This imbalance can cause excessive bearing loads during service and the bearing loads are aggravated by consequent whirling or whipping of the shaft caused by the unbalanced mass of distribution.
With steel shafts, the practice has been to balance the shaft by welding small weights at the end of the shaft. Small balance weights are attached to the yoke sleeve area at the ends of the drive shaft, because welding of the weights to the thin wall tube can cause thermally induced distortions, resulting in bowing of the shaft that can cause an additional imbalance.
With composite drive shafts, such as those formed of fiber reinforced resin, weights cannot be welded to the shaft and thus the shaft must be balanced by other means.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,170,896 describes a method of balancing a high speed propeller shaft through the use of self-adhering aluminum tape. In accordance with the procedure described in that patent, the imbalance is measured at a multiplicity of stations along the length of the shaft and the aluminum tape is applied as a continuous strip in a generally zig-zag pattern along with the length of the shaft to balance the shaft.